We’ve all seen photographs of lines of heavy traffic stopped to let a mother duck cross the road with her little scooters hurrying along behind her. And just a couple of weeks ago a squad of softhearted municipal employees somewhere pulled the cover off a storm drain to rescue a few ducklings that had fallen through the grating, while their agitated mother stood by clucking advice. (These are the same ducks, we should note, that in a few months will have to run a thousand-mile-long gauntlet of blazing shotguns and eager dogs on their way to their winter homes in a warmer climate. We human beings are nothing if not inconsistent.)

No ducks here. They stop in the swamp now and then on their way by, but as far as I can tell, don’t stay. What we’ve got is robins – up to here! Two in the garage, two on the house.

The summer we were building the house, one got into the attic through the open porch roof and built a nest on an attic windowsill. The carpenters built her a platform on the porch wall, and moved her nest there. She stayed. Last year the robins got up into the triangle between two roofs and somehow kept the nest from sliding into oblivion. But they found that a couple of crows and an enterprising broad-winged hawk could land on the lower roof and flap up toward the nest, which kept both them and Mother busier than they wanted to be. This year’s crew found an open casement bedroom window and built atop the sash.

I’ve figured out their tactic. They like a ledgy spot with little room to perch except on the nest itself; they like it unobtrusive; and they like it under an overhang, to keep off both the weather and larger birds who can’t easily get in under there at the eggs and chicks.

[ital] Turdus migratorius, [ital] they’re called. I can think of a fairly hilarious translation of that Latin, but it means simply “migratorial thrush.” They share with blue jays a remarkable jumpiness in the presence of human beings; you can’t get anywhere near them. This is surprising, since we mean them absolutely no harm, don’t throw things at them, and never shoot at them. Like hornets, they’re simply very poor judges of human intentions. But hornets exhibit a radically different response to being approached.

Our younger daughter, Martha, came by one day, climbed up a little ladder, and took a lovely photograph of five eggs in robin’s-egg blue. Next morning, going for the paper, I found the two halves of an empty shell halfway down to the road. Something had dropped them there. And that afternoon Mother, who can never resist attempting to interact with the rest of the animal world, brought home a basket. “Please screw this to the wall beneath the window,” she said, “and we’ll move the nest down so we can watch the babies grow.” I thought of a pretty hilarious rejoinder to that one, too, but abstained. Protesting firmly, I fastened the basket just below the window and climbed up to get the nest.

Its mud bottom was paper-thin. I lifted it gingerly down. But instead of eggs, several gaping little beaks with blind, bulging eyes just behind, reached toward my face. I set the nest very carefully into the basket and settled down to see how long it would take the parents to come back.

An hour later they hadn’t returned. The little open beaks were waving hungrily above the edge of the nest, and the late afternoon was cooling. We were feeling really bad; for the first time I understood Adam’s chagrin when he claimed, “The woman made me do it.”

“I don’t think they’re going to like that spot,” I offered. “Too low; no protection.” I got out the ladder and screwdriver and moved the basket up high, right next to its original location. But as darkness fell there were still no parents. We could see them out on the lawn, looking confused.

Mother was up before five next morning; I knew she would be. She was feeling worse than I was. When I got up, first thing she called to me from the kitchen was, “They’re back!” Whew!

Since then, we’ve been amazed at the energy and industry of the two parents. How do they know how to do what they do? The kids are growing like weeds; they’re now little fuzz balls beginning to jostle for room, and they’ll be fledged within a week.

Fast forward a few hours from this morning, when I started this column. I came home this afternoon and got out of my truck to a furious razzing from four very excited robins. I stepped carefully across the dooryard and onto the porch, but they still wouldn’t stop. It looked as though it might rain, so I walked to the end of the porch to take down the flag. As I reached the end of the porch, a very large broad-winged hawk launched itself from the edge of the roof above me and flapped to a nearby spruce. The robins were going nuts. I clapped my hands hard; he blinked. I flapped the flag at him and hollered, “Shoo!” He took off and fled across the yard, with a furious robin pecking at his nether parts. I checked the nest in the garage; three little heads still there. I checked the basket on the porch. Uh-oh. One very frightened little robin cowering in the bottom of the nest, apparently the only chick left. Nuts!